Greater Golem I

A greater golem is a man-made humanoid body given life by a bound elemental spirit and held entirely under its maker's command. Golems have no society and no natural habitat, and they are usually set to guard valuable objects or places. Unlike lesser golems, greater ones never slip their masters' control, and they can handle simple instructions with direct actions and basic conditions. Lesser golems cannot manage even that, but they remain clumsy servants, and a single job may take several separate orders to complete.

In battle they are mindless and emotionless, following only their masters' simple tactics, and nothing can talk them out of their instructions. They refuse to pick up weapons even when ordered, always preferring their fists. Golems are not natural beings and fill no role in the world's ecology. They do not eat or sleep and last until destroyed, usually in combat, though certain spells can heal them, and makers often use these to keep a golem in service for a long time.

A stone golem stands 9 1/2 feet tall and weighs about 2,000 pounds. Its roughly hewn body is often styled to its maker's taste, perhaps carved to look armored with an emblem on the breastplate, its limbs decorated with patterns, its head shaped like a helm. Whatever the decoration, it keeps the basic human features, two arms and legs and a head with eyes, nose and mouth, and it never carries weapons or wears clothes.

For breaking or hurling objects it has Strength 22. Only weapons of +2 or better can harm it. Rock to mud slows it for 2d6 rounds, while mud to rock heals all its lost hit points. Flesh to stone does not change its substance but leaves it open to normal attacks for the next round, though only direct-damage spells can affect it during that time. Every other spell is ignored. Every second round it can cast slow on one opponent within 10 feet.

Standing twice as tall as a man, an iron golem weighs about 5,000 pounds. It may be styled like a stone golem but almost always appears armored, with much smoother features. Some carry a short sword, short only relative to their size, which is very rarely magical. It makes no sound and has no smell. It walks with a heavy but smooth stride at half a man's speed, and unless the floor rests on thick, solid foundations, each footstep makes it shake.

It follows the stone golem's tactics except as noted. It has Strength 24 for lifting, throwing and breaking things, and only weapons of +3 or better can damage it. Magical electricity slows it (3 rounds), and magical fire repairs it, restoring a hit point per Hit Die of damage the fire should have done. Other spells have no effect, but a rust monster can damage it. Every 7 rounds, beginning in round one or two of a battle, it automatically exhales a cloud of poison gas, heedless of who might be caught. The gas fills a 10-foot cube just in front of it and disperses by the next round if it has room to spread.